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SNM280 Real Estate in Tiktok with Julia H Hurley

• Jonathan Green : Bestselling Author, Tropical Island Entrepreneur, 7-Figure Blogger

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Welcome to the Serve No Master Podcast! This podcast is aimed at helping you find ways to create new revenue streams or make money online without dealing with an underpaid or underappreciated job. Our host is best-selling author, Jonathan Green.

Today's guest is Julia H Hurley is a successful real estate agent and investor based in Knoxville, Tennessee. Despite initially being skeptical about pursuing a career in real estate, she was encouraged by her mentor to obtain her real estate license. To incentivize her, her mentor offered to list all his properties with her and pay for her license. Within her first year, Julia sold approximately $2,000,000 worth of properties, a challenging feat considering the market conditions at that time.

In this episode Julia H Hurley will share her insights and experiences in the world of real estate. Julia brings a fresh perspective to the table as she discusses the challenges and misconceptions surrounding the industry. From her years of experience, she has witnessed firsthand how clients often underestimate the difficulties agents face and how the National Association of Realtors falls short in properly educating agents. Julia's no-nonsense approach and drive for success will leave you inspired and motivated to navigate the real estate world with confidence.

Notable Quotes

- "just because they're a real estate agent, doesn't mean they've been trained. It doesn't mean they have experience. It doesn't mean they understand the contracts they're riding on. And if they're so guest to close the deal with you because they need a commission check. You've hired the wrong agent. You've hired the wrong agent." - [Julia H Hurley]

- "You've got an agent willing to do all the work that doesn't need to be done, and a consumer willing to take advantage of that person."- [Julia H Hurley]

-  "But it takes 2 years of falling asleep at your desk, working 80 hours a week to build a business, any business."- [Julia H Hurley]

-    "People, they never do what they say they're gonna do. It's like they don't know what they want." - [Jonathan Green]

-    "You gotta go whatever you're gonna do. You gotta be serious about it." - [Jonathan Green]

Connect with Julia H Hurley

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Connect with Jonathan Green

 

Jonathan Green: Real Estate and TikTok. How could they possibly go together? We're gonna find out what today's amazing guest, Julia Hurley.

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Are you tired of dealing with your boss? Do you feel underpaid and underappreciated? If you want to make it online, fire your boss and start living your retirement dreams now, then you've come to the right place. Welcome to Serve No Master Podcasts. where you'll learn how to open new revenue streams and make money while you sleep. Presented live from A tropical Island in the South Pacific by best selling author Jonathan Green. Now here's your host.

Jonathan Green: Thank you so much for being here.

Julia H Hurley: My pleasure. Always. A pleasure. Always.

Jonathan Green: Now I've been excited to talk to you for a little while ever since you came across my radar because I'm always interested in people that are able to transition from 2 different worlds because often real estate agents, let's be honest, are boring. It's always bus benches and Looks fridge magnets nobody wants, and it's, like, the approach. And I remember, my friend one of my friends from high school, he kept trying, but he was one of the guys that had a new job every 3 months. And for all, he was a real estate agent. And he's like, nobody will hire me. I was like, yeah. You're 21. It's so hard. And he was like, how he has hit one of his ideas. He's like, what if I wrap a flyer around a brick throw it through the window of every houses for sale. I was like, it's a good idea. They're definitely gonna know who you are. Like, it's definitely gonna get you attention. So we're on the right direction, but not a real estate agent anymore, surprisingly. But I would love to know what's most important to me is how did you first get interested in real estate And then just tell me a little about your journey. I wanna get to know Julia.

Julia H Hurley: Well, the real estate was forced on me. I gotta be honest with you. So I had a mentor. He passed away. but he was adamant that I get into real estate. And I would I personally equated and still do, especially with 90% of the agents not being trained properly in the country. Right? The National Association of Rolchers just says, here, we'll give you a real estate license because we just want your money. They could not care less if these know what they're doing or not. They really don't. Do not care. But it is a requirement that you paid them a fee, so that's how real estate agents get into it. thinking it's easy money, and that's how the National Association of Realtors makes money. So that's a very interesting dynamic there. So I equated real estate agents with used car salesmen are worse. And I actually have a lot of friends who own used cars lot, and they have used car lots, and they do better business than real estate agents most of the time. my mentor was adamant on it. He's like, you really need to get your real estate license. 2 years went by. I was like, I'm not doing this. This is not a career for me. This is not a good fit for me. I'm not a salesperson. I I really don't enjoy large crowds of people or staying out past my bedtime to network and go to just not who I am. So he eventually says, I'll list all my properties with you that I have that are open, and I'll pay for your real estate license. And if you hate it after a year, I'll never talk about it again. So I was like, well, obviously, you really think that I need to do this. It's somebody whose opinion mattered a lot, so I did exactly what they asked me to do. within a year, I had sold about $2,000,000 within my 1st year, which is extremely difficult. $2,000,000 sounds like a lot of easy money. especially since home prices today are what they are. But in my market, Knoxville, Tennessee, back then, the average market value was about $175,000, and we were just coming out of the OA crash, so nobody was buying houses. Right? Nobody was buying houses, but everybody wanted to sell them. So I came out of there were 2,000,000 in my 1st year in sales, which was extremely difficult to pull off. And I thought, well, you know what? Maybe I can do this. In the 2nd year, I hit about 6,000,000 in the 3rd year, I hit about 12,000,000 in the 4th, and it just kept going and kept going. So I was like, oh, okay. This makes sense now. And then I got into learning how to actually invest in my own real estate and represent investors and started dabbling in commercial real estate and starting to follow that. And I'm in in a decade, almost a decade, and I still don't know what I don't know, but I have learned a lot about real estate. And I've coached it all over the country, and have been very blessed to meet a lot of amazing people and also learn the conversation of connecting those dots. I guess you could say, between consumer and realtor, like, explaining that whole situation.

Jonathan Green: Let's get to the good stuff. Let's talk about what most realtors are doing that's real a real stinker. Let's talk about the things they do that we often don't think of. because realtors only make money if they close a deal, and I know that it's there's certain things. Like, once a house has been on the market, a certain amount of time, it's, like, to kiss a death. Right? Whether it's 30 days night in different markets, I know it's amount of time. Right? And they're like, you gotta get this house off our books. Right? Like, you gotta do whatever it takes to make this house disappear. And I remember, like, when My family moved to Tennessee because I moved to Nashville when I was 10 from LA, and one of the houses they showed us had been flood damaged. And I'm talking biblical. And they were like, mhmm. This is a fixer upper. And I was like, is that the right word to use here? I could smell the house from the road. They're like, it's got an amazing yard. And I was like, yeah. because this is old the art the yard survived the flood. the rest and it was like and that they would just show whenever they're trying to get rid of it, obviously, the flood house is gonna be hard when we get rid of it. It's hard to get rid of a murder house or a flood house or a home now. Let's be honest. Right? I feel like, you know and we're gonna ask about that in a minute because I know you've probably sold some, but that thing is that They're trying to get rid of it. And then the second they make the deal. Right? And the deal is, like, the more you pay for the house, the more the realtor makes. Right? Like, the realtor makes, I believe, 6% It's 3 and 3. Right? So if I do a higher bid --

Julia H Hurley: No. But it's a good guess. That's a everybody makes that guess. That's a great guess. Oh, it's not. You don't get more money by bid more? We don't get 6%. I don't know when the last time anybody's bothered to buy or sell a piece of real estate actually follow what's going on in this market. But now 1 6%, there's no industry standard. I mean, that's illegal you can't price fix. So that's considered a monopoly. Not allowed to do it. Everything's negotiable. The sellers negotiate commission price with their listing agents. So that's negotiable. Most of what we are seeing right now in this market, especially after COVID, is about 4%, four and a half percent. So Everybody's out here going. My real estate agent makes 1,000,000 of dollars. They're gonna make 6%. No. They're not. They're really not. Now that doesn't excuse bad service. but they're really not getting paid when everybody thinks they're getting paid. Not not even close. So let's say it's 4%. That's fine. I'm I learned something new today. 6% is what they say. That's what they say on $1,000,000 real estate. So Of course, they do. Because that $1,000,000 real estate, Ryan wants you to pay him 6 to 10 percent in New York. He's selling $30,000,000 condos. I'd want 6% too. I'm gonna argue that too. I mean, like, I'm the $1,000,000 real estate guy. services are worth 15%. If you don't wanna work with me, go work with a crappy real estate agent. But if I were the crappy real estate agent, I'd say, hey. Listen. I'm just getting my start in this, and I'll I have time to focus on only you. Unlike this guy, he has too many clients, and he's charging you too much I'll charge you less and dedicate all of my time on you. So it's a script for everything. If you know how to use it, you can make money. That's the that's pretty much the easiest part to explain.

Jonathan Green: Right. I love that. I learned something again. So we're talking about kind of the like, the things that I'm familiar with is, like, when a real estate agent is, like, to close a house or just trying to get me to take anything to make a commission. And then also the okay. You bought a house. See you. You're never gonna hear from me again unless you get divorced and then let me know. I'll sell your house. Right? Like, it's feels like there's --

Julia H Hurley: Well, so here's I'll interrupt you there. Two things. You hired the wrong real estate agent. That's your fault. consumers wanna blame the real estate agent. That's a shitty real estate agent. You hired them. Did you actually interview 3 agents? Did you actually take the time to hire the right person for you, or did you just Google it and expect a plus service for negative dollars? Because, honestly, this is still a business. you're not gonna go let's just say, for example, you were to get a divorce, and that's unfortunate because that's a lot of people, and it's a tough situation to be in. Are you literally gonna google the very first name that pops up for divorce attorney and just pay them whatever they ask you to and do whatever they tell you to do? And then when it doesn't go your way because you didn't research and then expect them to follow-up with you for years after the fact and carry on a relationship, Why is that an expectation of real estate agent? What is that expectation? That's the consumer's expectation. At the end of the day, The consumer has the responsibility to research real estate agents and ask about their services. And that's important. just because they're a real estate agent, doesn't mean they've been trained. It doesn't mean they have experience. It doesn't mean they understand the contracts they're riding on. And if they're so guest to close the deal with you because they need a commission check. You've hired the wrong agent. You've hired the wrong agent. They're so hungry. They can't look past what you need to get where you need to go. So that's a consumer problem. Right? And then the expectation of I never hear from him again. Why would you? What is your expectation on that? Does your doctor call you on the weekends and be, hey, Frank. Thanks so much for coming in for your prostate exam. Just wanted to be your friend, buddy. How's it going? No. You don't expect that from your doctor. You don't expect it from your lawyer. You don't expect it from your grocer. You don't expect it from anybody except real estate agents. So you're pissed when they don't wanna be your friend, but you hired them for a business. So you either want them to be your friend or you want them to be your protector in business. Which one do you want?

Jonathan Green: So what let's talk about that. What are the right things to look for when you're interviewing real estate agents. because this is interesting because my experience and, again, where I live, it's totally different. I live in a different country. I don't live in America anymore, so it's totally different here. But what are the right things? because my experience is usually you hire, like, a re either a referral or a friend of a friend. It's I very rarely hear about people. I don't think I've ever heard about someone who's like, oh, I interviewed 5 real estate agents to find the best one. He wouldn't approach it that way. And you're right. People do wanna I don't know. I also think you wanna be friends with whoever sold you your car sometimes, but it's like, oh, I didn't the car dealer sent me a Christmas card. Right? And --

Julia H Hurley: Yeah.

Jonathan Green: My dentist sends me a postcard every 6 months to remind me I need to come back in. It feels like a special credit. But --

Julia H Hurley: Right. But that's the service that you pay for every 6 months. Do you want to pay your real estate agent every 6 months to send you a card?

Jonathan Green: That's interesting.

Julia H Hurley: I mean, it's the same concept. Right? Oh, my dentist reminds me to come in and pay him 300 more dollars. Okay. Well, I'll send you a Christmas card at 39¢ for that stamp because that's what I get it for in bulk. So I'll send you 39¢ for $300 every 6 months. I'll exchange that all day long.

Jonathan Green: Right.I like it. So it's, like, paying to be you can pay your real estate agent to be with, like, I'll pay you a $100 a year retainer. You just send me a card every month. That's a pretty good deal I like.

Julia H Hurley: Right?

Jonathan Green: Yeah.
 
Julia H Hurley: Yeah.

Jonathan Green: It's a service. I'll be your friend, but you're gonna pay for it. I like that. I love it. So what are the kind of right kind of questions or what Actually, forget that. What are the dumbest questions people have asked you when they're thinking about working with you? Let's get to the good stuff.

Julia H Hurley: You know, I don't think any questions dumb. I just think it's unfortunate they do no research. A lot of people just absolutely do do zero research, and that does concern me for their future investment potential for participation political elections? I'm like, so, do you do this much research on your kid's schools? On the car you're gonna buy? On insurance? Like, is there any space where you're providing yourself the knowledge that you need before you pick up the phone? And that concerns me. So It's sometimes it's just say, hey. I want to buy some land. That's what I okay. Great. Tell me about what you wanna Okay. They'll tell me everything under the sun except any of the research. They don't like, hey. I want 5 to 10 acres. and then here's my favorite one. Well, I don't wanna be too far out of town. I want amenities. I wanna be close to a grocery store, maybe a Starbucks, I guess if it's the perfect property, I could maybe spend more. Yet, that entire conversation, they've told me nothing about their research on their fine financing. Have they approached a bank or a lender? They've done research on the area they're asking me about. They literally just pick up the phone to have a conversation like I'm free all day long like their best friend to chat with instead of approach, you can't like a respectful business.

Jonathan Green: Yeah. What I've seen And, again, my experience is limited, of course, is that some people are just like, show me 50 houses. I'll let you know if I like 1. And that's a huge amount of time. Right? Like, oh, you spent 3 days, and you have to drive them they have to ride around in the car with you, and then you sell all these houses and you're hoping something hits. And it seems to me at least most of the time, people say one thing, and then they end up going for something completely different. I want a house on the west side to go to the east side.

Julia H Hurley: Right.

Jonathan Green: I want a house. I don't want a one storey house. They get a two storey house. I'll never forget. When my parents split up, they my dad moved into it in their sixties. My dad got a three storey house. My mom got a two storey I was like, what is wrong with you guys? You're falling down it's fallen downstairs, and they my mom definitely had a massive fall down her stairs. And her bedroom was upstairs, and she's obstinate about it. I'm like, why at this phase in your life did you guys both get houses that are hard? Like, you've added extra layers of difficulty, and they live one block away from each other. Like, they did not even move that far apart. I was like, I thought you guys trying to get away from each other. So People they never do what they say they're gonna do. It's like they don't know what they want. And this is something I write up. When I write a book for a client, I can't tell you how many times. They approve the outline. They approve the rough draft. We write the entire book here. They read the rough draft. They go, you know what? I wanna write a completely different book. I'm like, yeah. That's great. You're gonna you're you're paying it again. And, like, they're, like, only after reading what we've spent 6 months writing together did I realize? I want something completely different.

Julia H Hurley: Right. Except the differences you got paid on your 6 months worth. real estate agent doesn't. And so now we're still in that same conversation of. You've got 2 things going on here. You've got a consumer that has absolutely no idea what they and they just want somebody to I I'm gonna say this in all fairness, just treat like shit. They want somebody to do whatever they want them to do when they want them to do it, end of story, they want control. That's number 1. The second part of that, number 2, is that you've got an agent willing to do it because they just got the real estate license and had absolutely zero conversation with anybody about how hard this industry actually is to survive in. So you got an agent willing to do all the work that doesn't need to be done, and a consumer willing to take advantage of that person. So right then is the perfect storm. So every real estate agent after that, best consumer is gonna expect that. And that is an expectation that if the National Association of Realtors wanted to actually keep good real estate agents going in this market and trained the new ones. And I'm not gonna say bad ones because new ones don't mean bad. It just means new. They would actually conduct themselves like they own a business. So this is how much I get paid an hour. This is how much your price point is. This is how much potential commission I can earn. This is how many hours that is gonna get me to a break even point. we need to pare down your wants and needs and treat this like a respectful business. Otherwise, you need to pay me more.

Jonathan Green: Yeah. I'm wondering why real estate agents don't just ask for a retainer.

Julia H Hurley: We're allowed to.

Jonathan Green: Oh, really? Learn something new every day.

Julia H Hurley So, again, another people think real estate agents own their own companies. We do not own our own company. We are 1099 employees of a brokerage. The broker can tell you what you can and cannot do. You must run your 1099 employment contract However, the broker sees fit. And if that broker doesn't wanna charge a retainer fee or allow for retainer fees to be charged, then that's what you do. That's where you go. That's where you hold your life Again, the National Association realtors has made this such a pyramid racket scheme where that everyone thinks that every single person is out for themselves Really and truly, they're working under the authority and control of a broker and brokerage. They cannot become their own broker until they've been licensed for 3 consecutive years, so they have no control over the way their business is truly ran.

Jonathan Green: In 2008, a lot of people I knew lost their jobs and they all became realtors.

Julia H Hurley: Yeah.

Jonathan Green: And in 2020, a lot of people lost their jobs, and they all became coaches.

Julia H Hurley: Yep.

Jonathan Green: What I noticed was in both cases, people think it's easy. Having been in my industry like, people think writing book, like, ghost writing is easy. coaching is easy. It's hard.

Yeah.

Jonathan Green: People only think it's easy because there's a large payment up front. Like, I when someone pays me, it feels really good. But there's a long trail between the first meeting and, like, I keep waiting for that wire transfer to appear, and there's a huge amount of work on delivery because you're spending a lot of time with that person. And It's only because of this perception. Right? Oh, it's really easy to be real estate agent, but it's not. It's just not the most --

Julia H Hurley: There's nothing easy about it. How long did you have to go to be able to let me tell you. Let me just ask you this because I'm currently writing a book myself. So I understand. I've been writing this book for a year, and it's actually my life story. So I understand it better than anybody, and I have zero skills in writing. Right? I went to college. Woo hoo. Big deal. That doesn't make me a writer. And people spend decades of their lives going through class, after class, master class, and then different genres and understanding all kinds of I mean, it it is a difficult specialized service that you provide, but real estate agents can go get the real estate license in 3 weeks. Of course, they think it's easy because obtaining the license is easy. because the National Association of Realtors wants their money. They could not care less if the perception of their industry is proper or not. because they don't make them put in the the hours and years of work. For example, if you wanna be an appraiser in the state of Tennessee, you have to do a 2 year apprenticeship under a master appraiser to be able to appraise properties. That's 2 years basically a free work as an apprentice. But as a real estate agent, you can go to any real estate school in 3 weeks to get a license. You can't tell me that we're respected as a profession when our own industry doesn't treat it's licensing like a profession.

Jonathan Green: It's very interesting because there's this and this happens in a lot of industries. There's, like, the perception that come from media. Right? like, so often on every sitcom when the when they're, like, season 6, like, oh, the mom needs a job. It's always realtor. Yep. And it's always, like, that jacket and this thing, and then there is this big disconnect. And I can tell you that in my industry, it's the same thing. I once in a while, they I get someone who thinks my time is worth, like, $3 an hour. And they come in with the number, and I'm like, well, that's less than 1% of what the last client paid, and they're always no matter what industry, there's always people that don't understand what goes into it or they think it's really easy. I'm like, if it was easy, you'd have already finished your own book. And it's fun. Some people do. I have some clients coming in like, this book is already good. You don't need me. I don't like when that happens, but it happens. But there is this I'm sure it happens too. People like, oh, I I know what I want. Here's the house I want. You just realtor it whatever, but they don't understand. Like, people misperceive and every and maybe it changes every 10 years when people Joe jump into a different industry. But it also means it's flooded with unqualified people and coaching right now has a really, really bad --

Julia H Hurley: Oh my god. Hey. Sure. And it should have it. The day interest rates. Well, I mean, you could have you could not have pegged it. I mean, I called it. I had TikTok videos. to from 2 years ago, they said this is exactly what's gonna happen. You could not have scripted this any easier if you just would understand the the situation. the day interest rates went up to 6%. overnight, I started seeing, I'm a real estate coach. Get 100 listings with me. hire me to teach you as a real So it's, like, realtor to realtor because they couldn't get their own business. So then they realized, well, realtors are the business. So I'm just gonna turn all of my advertising in my Five houses that I saw during COVID, but I'm gonna turn that into a coaching program. And some realtor out there is gonna pay me for it, and then I'm just gonna blow it all up on TikTok and Instagram paid ads. So, hey, realtors hire me. I'm a real estate coach because interest rates went to 6%. And then all of a sudden, people were like, are you really gonna negotiate me that best deal? Do you have the negotiation skills to get me a lower price or to get me all the repairs? When agents had to start working, they had they stopped working and started pitching themselves as coaches. It was literally an overnight. Flip the switch.

Jonathan Green: That's so funny because yeah, when the lockdown started, everyone changed their LinkedIn profile to say coach. And I was like, look. I've been doing this for full time for 13 years this month, 13 years in this business, and I take on so few coaching clients because guess what coaching clients are a nightmare? They never do what you tell them to do, and then they blame you for stuff they did. Yeah. And I do so few because of that. Right? And even now, Ivory number 300 bestsellers, and I still I think I have 4 book coaching clients I've taken over the last 5 years. I take so few, and I'm really good at it. because it's a massive investment. It's very low, unless you don't really care. I guess if you totally don't care if the person succeeds or not, it's not as bad. But I get very invested I send follow-up messages. I'm always trying to make them succeed, but there are so many people that think coaching is easy because you get paid upfront. And that's the different when you're do real estate. Right? You get paid only when the deal closes, whereas a coach can go, oh, I can get paid even if the deal doesn't close. And so it has that appeal, except for you still have to deliver on And that's the challenge that a lot of people are missing, and people do jump around as it's so easy to change your LinkedIn profile. And brought up something that's interesting. I kinda wanna dive into is that you've been really successful on TikTok --

Julia H Hurley: Yeah. --

Jonathan Green: which so many people jump on a TikTok tell me people send me a link to their tick that I got 57 followers. I'm like, it's better if you didn't tell me that you should've captured a secret. And just don't tell me Like --

Julia H Hurley: You're right.

Jonathan Green: It's better not knowing. It's like the people the 1st day of college. Like, oh, I had no friends in high school. I'm like, you coulda kept it a secret. Nobody woulda known. This is your chance. College is where you get to reinvent yourself, but not if you keep the same profiles. So I'd love to know about how you started doing that kind of transition and kind of how you brought that energy because a lot of people like, we've talked about at the beginning have a really drove perception of real estate or think that, like, a realtor, someone that either you wanna be best friends with, or they're just gonna rip you off and you're trying to get a minute out of your life as quickly as possible. And as you've mentioned, that it's a so many people will jump into the market without any understanding of the challenges and the trials and tribulations of it because it sounds easy from the outside. like, any career. If nothing if it was easy, everyone would do it and then would stop being easy. Like, that's, like, how you know. Whenever I see, like, something where they're like, oh, get paid to do surveys. I'm like, guess what? If you could get paid to surveys, everyone would do it, then they would stop paying as much money because I never had anyone come --

Julia H Hurley: Well, It's not that people don't understand that concept. I just think that they it's I don't remember what the study was. So I'm gonna reference it, but don't remember it. It was the whole politics thing somebody was doing And it was like a massive poll of every congressman is sucky, but my congressman, because I know them. And I'm like, yeah. But your is also the problem. No. I know them. I would never make a bad decision. I would never vote wrong, but my neighbor definitely votes wrong. Oh, okay. But you guys live in the same neighborhood and make the same income, drop the same cars, your kids go to the same schools, so you guys make the same decisions. Right? No. I would never make a bad decision. Oh, okay. Cool. Cool. Cool. Cool. So it's that whole perception of I know better than everybody else. Well, if we actually go by the facts, it's 10000 hours or 10 years to become an expert in something. That's 10000 hours of your time. and it's not 10000 hours studying it. It's 10000 hours actually doing it. So when I say I'm an expert in the real estate market, I'm a freaking expert. I got 10000 hours of time put into this, sweat, blood, and tears, all of it. Every agent out there thinks they're an expert after they've written 2 contracts. You don't even know what the contracts mean, let alone understand it, but they're out here trying to do it. And they've convinced themselves they can do it after they've sold their cousin's house and their mom's house. And all of a sudden, nobody's calling and nobody's picking up the phone. They don't know what to do. They start asking for help. And then all these fake coaches come out, well, just buy my program, and I'll coach you through it. What you should have had is, 1, signed up with a brokerage that actually offers you classes, learn how to lead generate, learn how to manage your money, maybe take a couple of business classes on how to run a P and L statement, how to manage your finances properly. Because when you get that $10,000, check, you're gonna screw up, maybe know what to do with it, maybe do a little more research on something, but most people say, no. I've got this. It was hard for her or hard for him because they don't know how to do it. I know how to do it when in reality, 1% of the entire population of real estate agents actually makes money. actually runs a business. And that's the reality for everything. 1% of the world does a lot of the stuff. Most of the rest of everyone else thinks they do.

Jonathan Green: Yeah. There's this perception that it's, like, you hit it out of the park on the first try. Like, people I love when this is my favorite thing bring up as a I wouldn't someone say someone's an overnight success. Like, whether, like, this band just broke out, and they're an overnight success. I'm like, it's their sixth album.

Julia H Hurley: Like, Eminem. How many albums did that guy have before he became popular? And everybody's like, I loved Eminem's first album. I'm like, you don't even know what Eminem's first album is.

Jonathan Green: It's almost every big band that blew up all the bands I like. I watch they're behind the music's now. I'm like, I only found I just got into a new band today. I rarely find a new band. I got a new band this weekend. It popped up by multiple. I was like, oh, I like this song. And it's called, oh, gosh. Oh, think it's called bring me the horizon or beyond the horizon. It's so bad. They have one song. Right?

Julia H Hurley: They were in the triple j top 100. They had 10 songs in the top 100 this year.

Jonathan Green: Well, they have been around for they're they're I think they found in the nineties.

Julia H Hurley: Yeah.

Jonathan Green: Like, they've been and and that's also because I'm old. As you, like, as you get older, you covered new bands and less. Like, when I was in my twenties, I could name 500 DJs and bands I liked. Now in the last 10 years, I've learned about 3 new bands. And it's just like, It just popped across my feet. I really liked it. And I very rarely right. But that's the thing is that you I can't be like, I'm an OG fan or I like it for Zalba,

Julia H Hurley: Ok lets stop right there and equate that to real estate. You just said when I was in my twenties, I could name 50 DJs, 50 bands, all the stuff that I loved and liked, and it was great. All it was great. And as I've gotten older, you said maybe 33 to 5 new ones that I can remember that I like. So here's that exact same conversation equated to real estate. Better the devil you know than the devil you don't. As you age, you get used to a certain kind of conversation, a certain kind of way of doing things, and you're more comfortable around things that you can equate yourself to liking. Same thing goes for real estate. These real estate agents out here are in their twenties. You can literally they're everywhere. Oh, you see me everywhere. I'm so popular. Look at me. Look at me. I'm so flashy. I'm this. I'm that. I'm so popular. And then as you as a consumer age, you only wanna be around people and do things that you're comfortable with. So you're gonna probably make the mistake of hiring your sister's cousin's brother who somebody you supposedly know or are comfortable with instead of maybe listening to those other 50 interviews and making sure you hire the right person. And that's how we see ourselves getting into trouble. Or I hired my daughter-in-law. I wanted to help her out. Okay. This is a business transaction. You should've gone with the 50 conversations instead of the 3.

Jonathan Green: Yeah. I think that it's so bad to mix friendship or family in business. Like, my wife comes with business ideas all the time. And I'm like, oh, that's a pyramid scheme. Don't do that one. Like, all the time. Right? Because and I'm like, look. She has my dream job. Everyone thinks I'm the smart one. My wife makes the exact same amount of money as me lives in the same house, doesn't have a job. She's literally my hero. Everyone she outsmarted me. Absolutely. She lives in the same house. She goes to the gym every day for 3 hours, hangs out with the kids all day while I'm up here grinding. Guess what? I so admire her. She has a great life, and it's fine. We have a great life together, but there's this perception that's completely wrong And, like, why would you wanna switch it? Right? You have something great going. We ran a business together for a while. Okay? And she ran it totally. I just helped a little bit, and then we had our 4th child. I'm like, kids is a lot. It's okay. But a lot of people, they look at it and think it's easy. And the secret is, at least for me, is that I work every I work 7 days a week, and I've been doing it for 13 years. The secret is not being a genius. That helps, but so much of it. Like, most every time you look at all these tech billionaires, how many hours did they spend sleeping under their desk? At least I've never done that, but you've ignored that. You go --

Julia H Hurley: I've been there I used to fall asleep at the kitchen table right in contract. I'd wake up in a puddle of drool on my laptop when I first started. My 1st 2 years in real estate, I tell people this, and they're like, oh, it's not like that. Like, it is exactly like that. And if you think you're any different, I promise that you're not. Anybody that is successful in real estate, I sell $20,000,000,000 a year in a market where the average price point $275,000. I bust my ass in a story. I worked really hard. The 1st 2 years, it was a 7 day work week. 15 to 16 hours a day of knocking on doors. Going to breakfast, lunch, and dinner, statement outside of the school pickup drop offline, handing out business cards to moms coming in and out of the school, eating dinner in my car. You wanted a 10 o'clock phone call at night? I'm on it. I'll answer your phone I will do whatever I have to do. Now I get to choose my client. But those 1st 2 years, you choose nothing. You choose nothing if you're building a new business. and you work. You work 7 days a week and you work until you get exactly what you need. After those 2 years, if you play it right, If you actually make the relationships last, if you actually keep track of every person you've ever bought and sold with, you've done the correct advertising, you've asked for those reviews, you've followed up properly, the business comes to you. But it takes 2 years of falling asleep at your desk, working 80 hours a week to build a business, any business. Any business.

Jonathan Green: That's the thing that I think causes a lot of people to fail is that they go and thinking it's gonna be easy. Like, I love when people think they they buy a course for me, and it's 10 hours of content. And, like, how do I have 10 hours to do? I mean, you went to 4 years of college, spent a quarter $1,000,000 and you're complaining about 10 hours of time to learn something that works. Right? And that's the hard part is that to sell, right, to sell a programmer to commit someone to do something, you gotta make sound easy, but then they actually have to do the hard thing. It's like the trick of the Vajita. The Vajita is just a loud burrito where you pay more. Right? because it's got that attention. But that's the thing that separates people who succeed from those who don't, it's not luck. It's not genius. It's grind. And --

Julia H Hurley: It's consistent.

Jonathan Green: -- when I was eighteen, I wanted I went to every rave across the Southeast. I lived in Nashville. I was in Memphis, Atlanta, North Carolina. Myrtle Beach is driving all over. I slept on wooden floors and in bathtubs all the time. I'm not doing that anymore. Like, at this, my age, I can't do that. Right? That's something you do at 18, not something you do at forty, Like, now I'm like, wait. This is only queen-size bed. No pillow top. Are you how am I gonna sleep on that? Right? Like, it's totally ships, but it's that beginning and, unfortunately, when we tell the hero story, every time we hear about this successful person, they never talk like, when I started, I lived in my mom's basement for a year, then I lived in my couch in a studio apartment. I slept maybe 25 inches from his feet on a wicker couch, not a comfortable couch, a horrible wicker one, for another year and a half until we I had enough money that I could rent an apartment. But no one talks about that, and that's really unfortunate because then you go and thinking it's gonna be easy and it's not. And that's the problem coachable state.


Julia H Hurley: That's the problem. Nobody's gonna believe you. That's the issue. People are sold the dream. They only buy into what they think is something that they want. So it's the same as real estate. I can come into this conversation, and I do. I will fire a client on phone in a heartbeat. I'll be like, we're this is not a fit. Good luck to you. Best of luck. Find another realtor. I don't have time or patience for it. I'm 41 I've got 3 companies that I run, and we have a family. I'm not happy. There are a hundred questions I will ask you as a buyer. I am a good agent. I'm gonna say pretty great. I'm I'm bordering on excellent, honestly. So I know exactly when you're lying to yourself and I'm just gonna call you out on it. I don't have time to sell you a dream. Ho homeownership is no longer a dream. It's like owning a car. You gotta get one. You're not gonna go anywhere without it. K? So it's what it is. You either wanna pay your mortgage, you wanna pay somebody else's. Which one do you wanna do? k? You need to know the answer to those questions. So when I say, hey. How many bedrooms or bathrooms would you like? And you say maybe or what I'm like, no. Maybe he's not gonna cut it. I need to know. Can you survive on Three bedrooms, or do you need Three bedrooms and a bonus room? Because that's gonna be a different conversation. Maybe doesn't cut it. I need you to tell me really and truly what you need. And don't get me this. Well, my lender said I might qualify for this. But if I did this, then I might qualify for that. Please, then let me know when you're serious. Well, I am serious. Note you're fishing. You are calling me with a maybe. When you're ready, I'm here for you, but I have 35 other buyers who are ready, willing, and able, and they are ready to go. so they need my time and attention today. When you can answer these questions and you know the answers that you need, we can then work on your wants. but they need to be sold the dream. So 100 real estate agents out there today will tell you that I am crafts that I don't know how to connect to my clients. that my clients don't they leave, and they hire other realtors because they just don't like the way that I do it. That's fine. I sell a 100 houses a year. You don't have to like the way that I do But when push comes to shove and you've got termite damage and you need a seller to replace a subfloor and that same agent that took that buyer calls me and tries to negotiate with me, they lose every single time. Because at the end of the day, I'm not here to be your best friend. I'm not here to sell you a dream. I am here to protect you from any issues that could arise and negotiate the absolute highest price if you're my seller and the best price if you're my buyer. and that is a skill and a career that took years to master. So if you want a friend, we can be friends after the fact. but if you want impeccable service and ability, I'm your gal. Otherwise, I don't have time for this conversation. Does that make sense?

Jonathan Green: Yeah. I love when I see people's online dating profile, and it says, I'm looking for a serious relationship. I always know that such a red flag obviously, this is a while ago. Right? long before I got married. But every time I would see that, and they would go, what are you looking for? I'm like, I don't know because I haven't met you yet. I'm dating, and I'm open to the possibility. But anyone who's looking, they just want that next one, and that's such a red flag is because they'll jump at anyone. Right? Right. It's the same time, the person who compliments everyone, it doesn't mean anything. Right. It's the person who compliments rarely that has actual value. Like, the guy who says to every woman you're beautiful, well, then you it doesn't mean anything because you say it to everyone. It's a generic statement, and there's no uniqueness to it. And it's the same way as a Like, when someone talks to me and they're like, how do I know you're a good writer? I'm like, I don't know. I don't have that conversation anymore. I just don't. I said, look. you can't be through a referral. I only do referrals. You can't find me through my website. I don't even mention it. You already know somebody who told you I was great. We wouldn't be on the phone together. Like, It just is what it is, and that's what they're looking for. People want it's like you wanna hire the best, or do you want someone sometimes people like, hey. Do you think we're gonna work well together? I'm like, yeah. It doesn't matter. My job is to write an amazing book, and I'm going to.

Julia H Hurley: I think that people don't understand how to accept rejection even when it's not rejection. Right? It's like you called me. You want me to serve you in some capacity, and now you are making me chapter hoops. You called me. you were obviously referred to me. Like, what what extra? I'm just gonna reject this now. I'm just rejecting you. And then people are like, woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Don't reject me. And they don't realize that's what they've done just by picking up the phone in general with that kind of conversation. Like, I don't have time to play this game all day. I'm an expert. Okay? I know that we need to get to know each other a little bit, and that's fine. But I'm gonna date you for the next 30 to 60 days. I'm gonna help you negotiate this deal. It's gonna be amazing. And at the end of that, we're gonna break up, and we're gonna get a little bit of rejection and some sadness. And that's how it's gonna go. So I'm gonna prepare you for that up front. let's go do this. So you don't again, I'm gonna rush with you don't ask your doctor to be your best friend. You don't question your attorney. You just assume they know what they're doing. It's just you need to hire an expert and know what they're doing.

Jonathan Green: Yeah. I love when people ask me for things outside my area of expertise. Like, look, I'm good at one thing. I'm really, really good at it. And it's when you move people outside their Eric's routine. I'm like, yeah. I'll help. You want me to design your cover? Great. I'll do it. It's not gonna be that good. because compared to my writing, my cover design is not as good. I can do it. I obviously, I'll just hire someone else. I know I'd hire a great designer, but I would never design it myself. Right. But there's this the people yeah. They wanna be your friend or they're asking the wrong questions. And I sometimes think about this when someone's like, well, am I qualified to help? This is something coaches or people who are teaching often ask, and people always come to eat it. When someone says to me, I think my story is boring. I always know they're gonna tell me the craziest story. I remember one guy said, I don't think I'm interesting. I was a spy in Cambodia during the Vietnam war illegally And then I was a spy against Russia and my --

Julia H Hurley: -- story. That was the boring part. Then he goes and I was a spy in Moscow, and my wife was undercover in the Moscow ballet. Is that interesting? And I said, I feel like you don't know what the word interesting means. Whenever someone thinks there's the more boring they think they are, I know they're about to say something so crazy Right? One of my friends, when I was younger, I I met him for friend and friend. I was like, what do you do? He's like, oh, I'm underwater demolitions instructor. And I was like, wait a minute. This guy's a navy seal instructor. It took me, like, an hour to figure it out because he was he described it as, oh, I do underwater construction. And I was like, wait a minute. Because they People whatever you the more crazy it is, right, the more casual you are about it because it's not that interesting because you don't have to make it interesting if you do something amazing. But there's this --
 
Julia H Hurley: Well --

Jonathan Green:  Sometimes, yeah.

Julia H Hurley: The reason they don't have to make it interesting is because you don't wanna share it with everybody else. Because everybody else just wants part of it. And that's you. As you become more and more or better and better and better or more accomplished, you start to surround yourself with other more accomplished people. And so if you keep sharing that story, all the people that haven't accomplished anything just want to take that from you. And it's not that they're doing it in a mean way or an appropriate way. It's just it's like, you know what? It's just not that interesting. I just don't wanna share that story. And then one day, you do call a book person and you're like, I'm ready to share my story, but it could not be that interesting. because you spent so long down playing it so you didn't have to share it.

Jonathan Green: Yeah. It's people my favorite is when someone you hire an expert and they don't wanna do their expertise. it's, like, sometimes people hire me and they go, we are not allowed to do any research. I'm like, wait. What? On what? Them? No. To, like, back up their stories or found all of that stuff. I'm like, no. That's him make a great a book. Great. Like, my job is to do I do tons of research. I've one of my best clients, I found a picture of his father he'd never seen. It's very exciting for me. Like, that's the kind of stuff I'll that was one of my favorite adventures. Like, I found this picture of your daddy because I've never seen that. And I was like, yes. Right? Like, that's great with me.

Julia H Hurley: Same thing with real estate. And that's, again, That requires an expert. Everything that you're doing requires somebody that knows how to do it. And with real estate, when you come up with me and you're like, hey. I wanna see 5 houses. The research time that I put in on every single house is a good hour per home. So when you tell me that you wanna go see these and you're ready to make an offer, you're ready to seriously go look at houses, I do the research, and it takes so much time. Deeds are like twelve pages long per house on top of HOA restrictions, previous ownership, extra photos, any stories that came along with the house, all the stuff. It takes research and time. When I come with you, to show you a house and I present you this information, you didn't just find me on Google with my 5 star reviews and hire me. You found the expert. and I do expect to be treated as such and paid for my time.

Jonathan Green: Yeah. I feel like if you get one of those realtors that will just jump in at the chance, they'll never tell you it's a murder house. It's like you need an extra of course. And I especially wanna know if it was never solved. Like, that's very important to me. They're still out there and they know how to get in this house. But what we're talking about here and I think it's important for people who are listening is that we're talking about positioning versus prospecting and because prospecting is where where we all start, where we're chasing clients, and you'll close any deal, and positioning is where you're, like, you switch from, like, calling the client to the client calls you and you go, well, let me decide if I wanna work with you. And that's a scary switch. I understand that. But just to give a name for it so people know because It is this thing when I mean, look, my first job, I wrote a book for $800. They did a $1,000,000 in profit from that book. Should it ask for more, learn my lesson, like, That's but guess what? I pay my rent that month. And that's part of it is that when you're starting early on, you're gonna eat some doodle. I always say, into every life, a little due to must roll down the mountain. And when you're starting out, you gotta eat it. And you gotta eat some crow because that's how you start.

Julia H Hurley: That's actually 1 of the titles in one of the chapters in my book? Crow Pie tastes good. It's the title of one of the chapters.

Jonathan Green: Yeah. because guess what? When my son was in the hospital and needed emergency surgery, I took a job. Right? Like, you'll do extra stuff when you need to bring in the money. You'll do whatever it takes. I'll do Whatever it takes for my kids. That's part of being the dad and being the revenue generator in the family that sometimes people forget when they're like, oh, I'm dabbling. I hate when people call it a side hustle. It's like, yeah. Well, that means you're not serious.

Julia H Hurley: It means you're taking focus away from what could possibly be making you money and giving it to something that is a maybe, which means you weren't serious about

Jonathan Green: You gotta go whatever you're gonna do. You gotta be serious about it. And I like how serious you are about real estate. That's why I wanted to talk to you. I'm not really a real estate guy where I live, it's the opposite. There's no rule of law. I live in the 3rd rule of country. I live in Southeast Asia. I live in Southeast Asia. There's no rule of law.

Julia H Hurley: A non a non contract. Basically, the real estate companies can I can walk across a sign to a house and say, hey. I'm a better realtor. hire me, and the person could give me a verbal yes. I could remove another agent sign and put my sign in the yard, and I would have that listing for as long as until the next agent tried to steal

Jonathan Green: It's not even that. It's that if the police come and go, we want your house. They can take it. They just take or the I had someone in the fire department came around and said, I'm gonna be ashamed of this place burned down. When the fire department's doing shakedown serious, and we and people are like, oh, why don't you buy here? I'm like, oh, first of all, there's no rule of law. So it's when you go to court, whoever has more money wins, whoever paid drives a judge bigger. So that our last house, we we had a beautiful house, it was destroyed in a typhoon. We left. we're able to leave the next day. And our house now same thing. It's that we live in an amazing house that people consider high risk because there's, like, a bunch of weird stuff with the police. Yeah. Whatever. I can kick that any house. They don't care. If they choose you, right, and so it changes the strategy, but I wanted to talk to you because you are passionate and because you are abrasive, which is what I like. I like people that say the truth. because a lot of people, right, they make it sound like this is why I hate about real estate. Everyone makes it sound really easy. they could sound like a dream. because it's always come down to the holiday inn by the air future real estate, and it's not.

Julia H Hurley: hurting when you figure it out. I'll tell you, and I say this every day, and it's this is the truth. It's when you figure out how this industry works. and you understand how to be the best version of your industry for your clients on behalf of your clients. It is a dream. there is nowhere else I have ever seen outside of stock markets or tech or some big investment boom. that if used properly, the investment in real estate will get you anything you've ever dreamed of. There is no faster way to make money than real estate. And that doesn't mean you have to be a real estate agent, but it does mean you need to understand real estate. I have never, in my life, experienced such financial growth while the 6 year mark in my career where I truly understood how to invest in real estate, take advantage of real estate, borrow against real estate, leverage real estate, And those things came with 6 years of helping other people attain real estate. So I figured it out after the fact. But if you come from a wealthy family already, or a family that understood real estate as you were growing up, real estate will get you the dream. It is a dream when it becomes exactly everything that the work that you put into it, then you get exactly what you put in out. But it takes years of your life to get that part of it. So you can't just learn it in 1 weekend by the airport? North 3 weeks to get a license. National Association Realtors live to like, it takes years.

Jonathan Green: I love it. This has been really great. Thank you so much for giving me so much of your time. Where could people find out more about you online, see what you're doing, and if they're in the Knoxville area, maybe see if they're good enough to be your client.
Julia H Hurley: Yeah. So linked Linkt.ree which is has all of our links on it, and so I've got my web 3 on there as well. So linkt.ree/ theJuliaHurley, TikTok, the Julia Hurley, So basically everywhere in my website for real estate is justhomesgroup.com. As in we just sell homes, so just homes with an s, justhomesgroup.com.

Jonathan Green: That sounds great. Thank you so much. I'll put that in the show notes. And, again, guys, make sure you follow her on TikTok because she is crushing it. That's at the Julie Hurley, and thank you so much for being here. This has been an amazing episode. Thank you so much.

Announcer: Thank you for listening to the surf master podcast. Get a free copy of my bestseller Fireboss right now on Amazon. Go to supermaster.comforward/getfire, or just search fire your boss on Amazon. 

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